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Surfin the Third Wave

November 13, 2016

Our fate was certain. That long slow trek from middle age to irrelevance while we stood in the way of the young who, just like we did, want everything for themselves. And now science keeps us all lingering in this life longer, stronger, better able to be here (most of us) than ever before. The expectation of the culture is that we would become predictably less open to things and could be “nostalgia” marketed until our demise with oldies records, and rose colored memories and tributes of a time that was anything but certain while it happened.

But music is like water and it fills any space. So music found it’s way into our lives and kept us asking. What is the music of the Third Age of life? Should it consist only of nostalgic farewell tours of old recordings from our once young idols? Or seeking out new bands that are like the ones of our youth even?

Doesn’t it really require it’s own songs…this new phase of our life? I don’t wonder anymore why some anonymous pretty girl doesn’t like me. Or why my dad won’t make my life easier. I don’t wonder who I am as much as marvel at what and why we all are. I don’t resent or envy the same people or things. I have replaced them with a new set of hero / villain archetypes. Must our entire third age culture consist of nostalgia and Depends commercials, my kid borrows money and I lost my glasses jokes?

Science has extended our lives but art must fill it and guide us through the changes our new age has created. So sing with us and write songs with us about the happy funny tragic coincidence of our being alive.

In this time. At this age.

Betty Davis famously said that getting old was, “not for sissies” Well being older is new to me and as with anything new, I will explore it…with a wiser heart….I will celebrate it and bemoan it and embrace it. And I will write songs that explore, explain, complain for a refrain, but never remain the same.

Write us if you feel like sharing this journey. Don’t hesitate to pour out your critiques. (we are more curious than thin skinned) And find the music that fits your now.